The Olive Fairy Book

Many years ago my friend and publisher, Mr. Charles Longman, presented me with Le Cabinet des Fées (The Fairy Cabinet). This work almost requires a swinging bookcase for its accommodation, like the Encyclopædia Britannica, and in a revolving bookcase I bestowed the volumes. Circumstances of an intimately domestic character, not wholly unconnected, as Mr. Micawber might have said, with the narrowness of my study (in which it is impossible to swing a cat), prevent the revolving bookcase from revolving at this moment. I can see, however, that the Fairy Cabinet contains at least forty volumes, and I think there are about sixty in all. This great plenitude of fairy tales from all quarters presents legends of fairies, witches, genii or Djinn, monsters, dragons, wicked step-mothers, princesses, pretty or plain, princes lucky or unlucky, giants, dwarfs, and enchantments. The stories begin with those which children like best—the old Blue Beard, Puss in Boots, Hop o my Thumb, Little Red Riding Hood, The Sleeping Beauty, and Toads and Pearls.